Furt, what news organization or broadcast or publication do you consider a reliable source for unbiased information?
Do I understand you correctly that you see the BBC as more or less a liberal counterpart to Fox news and Rush Limbaugh?
I actually find some of the best links, along with analysis of the news right here on the SDMB! Seriously, Dopers may argue and attempt to sway others via their own web links, but there appears to be sufficient diversity and real web searching to find quality reports and news analysis. When you really get down to brass tacks, many Dopers have web search abilities and a nack for real news sniffing much better than the “journalists” who are supposed to be doing this as a job.
An ironic twist to this is every so often a thread here, along with the resulting critical eye from the Dopers, seems to be the basis for a more public corporate media story in the mainstream press. Now I am not suggesting some of these media types actually lurk on the SDMB for stories. However, it is sometime uncanny how a well used thread on issues makes it to the mainstream press (TV as well as print) around six to eight weeks after a “discussion” on the very subject right here.
Uhm…some guy named Ted Koppell, who has this obscure little show on late at night, has been in Iraq all week. He’s retracing the route he took during the original invasion and seeing how people are doing, talking directly to them. He’s reached Baghdad now, though, but he’s still asking pretty tough questions–right now he’s grilling Paul Bremer himself. A transcript should be up at abcnews.com pretty soon. And I’ve seen (and linked) to plenty of articles about life in the new Iraq, some even in the media-oriented NY Observer.
When you say “castration of the press” I am assuming that you mean someone has done the castrating.
In your links and your posts I’m not seeing anything about this.
Are you really saying that the press has been castrated in Iraq, or merely that the press seems impotent and isn’t doing a very good job, or something else?
I express no opinion at this point regrading the manner in which the press came to be castrated.
I do, however, remark upon your remarkable ability to count and discount my “links,” given that I provided only one substantive link.
There are actually two links in your post, hence the plural. I realize they are related, but the fact is that there are two actual links within your post. The fact that there are more than one, means that you have “links” in your post.
The simple use of the plural is not predicated by whether or not the links are substantive or not. They remain “links.”
I cannot imagine why you find this remarkable or worthy of focussing on. To me it seems an innane if not anally retentive nitpick that lacks even the merit of being correct. You certainly appear to be straining to find issue with my post.
Allrighty. I was under the impression that this would be a debate where positions would be taken. Will we be having punch and pie while I wait?
Sure, John Mace, because I really am that fu*king stupid. Thank goodness we’ve got people like you to help us all out.
For anyone who has a longer memory than a goldfish and can’t find the much cited survey:
Misperceptions, The Media and The Iraq War
"A majority of Americans have held at least one of three mistaken impressions about the U.S.-led war in Iraq, according to a new study released Thursday, and those misperceptions contributed to much of the popular support for the war.
The three common mistaken impressions are that:
U.S. forces found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
There’s clear evidence that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein worked closely with the Sept. 11 terrorists.
People in foreign countries generally either backed the U.S.-led war or were evenly split between supporting and opposing it.
Overall, 60 percent of Americans held at least one of those views in polls reported between January and September by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, based at the University of Maryland in College Park, and the polling firm, Knowledge Networks based in Menlo Park, Calif."
etc, etc . . .
Yes, someone with the intellegence of a goldfish would take that survey as conclusive proof that FOX is a biased news source. Probably because goldfish don’t understand the concept of causal fallacies, several of which apply to the conclusions drawn in that study.
Well, feel free to walk us through how you think that applies to this particular survey because then we have something to talk about. All I’m seeing at the moment is someone who tells us what a laugh he’s having before driving off to another thread.
Are you sure you’re not in the wrong forum?
Or, alternatively, address the points in my post, which, under the circumstances, I’d better spell out even more clearly for you:
- A media that is not required by law to produce fair and balanced reporting will only serve the agenda of those it represents, and
- To ensure a media that presents fair and balanced reporting, an independent
regulatory structure with power of serious sanction is a valid mechanism to overcome the self-serving agendas of corporate owned media.
A believes B. A watches C. Therefore A learned B by watching C. Nope.
You’re making 2 bold statements without proof. The survey you cited (you know-- the one I was supposed to read your mind about in your first post) is so narrowly focused on one topic that even if we ignore the causal fallacies it assumes, cannot be generalized so broadlly. Also, assuming #1 to be true, #2 simply subsititutes another agency for the one whose agenda is being represented in #1. The two agencies may self-correct, and they may not. And it is precisely the fear of “power of serious sanctions” that leads to the 1st amendment of the US constitution.
Somewhat buggers the question, John. Are you pleased that so many Americans hold views that are clearly false? (Note that I am granting, in advance, that you are too intelligent and aware to hold these views yourself. If I have mis-overestimated you, please advise)
I don’t think it necessarily buggers the question. Surveys consistently show that Americans hold all kinds of unsupportable beliefs: UFOs, ESP, Angels, etc. And this extends to politics as well. It’s been true from the beginning of the Republic until now, and yet we’ve managed to bumble our way into creating and maintaining a pretty damn good good country.
One can hope that the collective wisdom of the electorate cancels out the more whacky ideas. You are the guys who likes to hope, right?
An attribute I assume we hold in common.
But you didn’t answer the question, John, you answered another question entirely. Does the prevalence of these beliefs please you? If someone expresses one of those opinions, do you feel bound to contradict them?
As to the silly beliefs commonly held by the Public, God bless 'em, I submit that it is a different kind of misinformation, specificly, misinformation that is acted upon, at great cost in blood and treasure. I am not particularly dismayed by the publics belief in UFO’s unless Fearless Misleader should propose a pre-emptive invasion of Mars, which is, of course, perfectly…
Oh, dear. Naw, that’s too fuckin’ crazy. Isn’t it?
Not pleased, but not particularly bothered either. At least not in the sense of being surprised. The UFO example was just easier to reference than other incorrect beliefs held by many in the political/economic realm.
Sam, can we take that to mean that you’re no longer going to grace us with breathless, adoring articles about how swimmingly things are going in Iraq without first checking to see if the writer ever left the Green Zone? 'Tis devoutly to be wished.
John, some of us do see a difference worth observing between harmless misbeliefs (UFO’s) and ones that get wars started and people killed. But maybe it’s all the same to you.
**On the castration of the press and the pathetic coverage of Iraq **
I looked beyond the hyperbole of **minty green’s ** opening proposition in search of a talking point to present in opposition . In vain.
Instead I’d just like to say that the on-ground press in Iraq is not at all castrated, and only the doom and gloom coverage of Iraq by so-called “rare” reporters of whom **minty green ** admires so much, can be called sad and pathetic.
The context in which I was posting some of those messages was as a counter to the absolute defeatest messages we were getting from other quarters, claiming that Iraq was a disaster, the people all hate the U.S., the insurgency had widespread support from the population, the country was cracking up into civil war, yada yada yada. Remember those?
The real situation on the ground is complex. The people are ecstatic that Saddam is gone, but wary of the U.S. presence. They want the U.S. gone, but they want them to stay because they are worried about civil war. The Sunnis are worried about their loss of status and prestige, but they are happy that Saddam is gone. Etc. Overall, there is widespread support for the invasion having taken place, and widespread support for the general idea of the coalition’s plans, but much skepticism about the details and a lot of anger about specific goings-on.
I agree, man. All this doom and gloom sucks! Let’s hear happy news…You know the way it would be covered if a totalitarian country was controlling things. Hell, I am sure that if Saddam Hussein had conquerred the U.S. [you know, with that massive arsenal of WMDs 
] then you wouldn’t be hearing any nambie-pambie sad and pathetic stories about things here in the Iraqi media!
[And, if all those Fox News watchers end up believing lots of stuff that just ain’t so, well, they voted for Fox in the marketplace everytime they tuned their TV sets to that channel. And, as we know, the market is the only just, infallable, and non-coercive way to decide anything in our society.]
John, while it is true that correlation does not equal causation and, indeed, I am sure that the viewers of Fox News are somewhat of a self-selected bunch, does it not bother you that so few of these viewers seemed to have their incorrect viewers disabused by watching Fox? And, particularly…Does it not bother you that of those who watched Fox as their major news source, the ones who claimed to be following the news on Iraq most closely were the ones least likely to be disabused of these incorrect “facts”?
True enough in any single instance. And, even when applied to larger groups, still not conclusive proof of causation.
But when the figures for correlation are high enough, one can justifiably begin to draw some conclusions about the connections. It’s certainly true that the causal direction is unclear. Perhaps the real question that comes out of this survey, then, is:
Does watching FOX tend to make people ignorant, or do more ignorant people watch FOX?